Security Systems News - TRG Associateshttp://www.securitysystemsnews.com/taxonomy/term/2345
enGoing mobilehttp://www.securitysystemsnews.com/article/going-mobile
<div class="field field-name-field-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden clearfix">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even"> The changing PERS market presents opportunities, challenges for central stations</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="field field-name-field-pubdate field-type-datestamp field-label-hidden clearfix">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even" property="schema:datePublished dc:date"><span class="date-display-single" property="schema:datePublished dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2012-07-25T00:00:00-04:00">07/25/2012</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="field field-name-field-blogger field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden clearfix">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even" rel="schema:author dc:creator">Rich Miller</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden clearfix">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even" property="schema:articleBody content:encoded"> <p>America’s elderly population is increasing and is becoming increasingly mobile, with health care technology advancing in lock step. That fact hasn’t been lost on the monitoring world, which is gearing up for new revenue opportunities that will accompany the growth of personal emergency response systems (PERS) and mobile PERS devices.</p>
<p>According to a recent report by the Central Station Alarm Association, 65 percent of monitoring companies are involved with PERS and senior monitoring at some level, with another 9 percent looking to become involved in the next two years. More than a third of those currently involved are planning substantial growth.</p>
<p>The biggest gains in PERS monitoring are projected to revolve around mobile technologies and applications. While monitoring via PERS pendants linked to home base stations is expected to increase 2 percent from 2012 to 2015, monitoring via PERS pendants or wristbands using mobile networks is forecast to rise 35 percent during the same period, according to the CSAA.</p>
<p>“It looks like we’re going to be seeing dramatic growth in systems that leverage the mobile communications network rather than [or in addition to] premises-bound base units,” said John Brady, president of TRG Associates, while discussing the report June 27 at ESX in Nashville. “And it seems like a number of companies are awake and acting on the opportunity to provide more comprehensive senior monitoring, including tracking movement, cooking and bathroom activities; monitoring medicine consumption, and monitoring life signs and other diagnostic information.”</p>
<p>Central stations that are new to PERS and are looking to take advantage of the growth do face challenges, however, especially when it comes to the mobile aspect of the market with GPS and two-way audio. Monitoring outside the static environment of a building can lead to difficulties locating and identifying those in need, then getting help to them.</p>
<p>In the vast majority of cases when an MPERS device is activated, operators resolve the situation simply by talking to the person who sent in the alarm, according to Morgan Hertel, vice president of operations for Syracuse, N.Y.-based Rapid Response Monitoring.</p>
<p>“Almost all of the mobile devices today are enabled with audio control, whether it’s one-way or two-way, and most of them are two-way,” he said. “So more often than not, when somebody calls from a mall, for example, they can tell you where they are and if they’re OK. When somebody falls and gets hurt, usually somebody who happens to be a bystander will pick up the phone or device and they’ll hear us talking, and we’ll be able to have the conversation with them.”</p>
<p>Hertel said it becomes a problem when the central station can’t contact the person with the MPERS device or talk to someone else nearby. Then operators have to rely on GPS to try to pinpoint the person’s location for first responders.</p>
<p>“The more openness [GPS] has to the open sky, the better the accuracy,” Hertel said. “There are situations where the accuracy is well within a couple of yards, and that happens quite often. But buildings have some inherent issues. If the signal comes from inside a mall that doesn’t [accommodate] GPS technology, the last location it has will be somewhere in an open-sky area just outside the mall.”</p>
<p>The pinpointed location could be the front door of the building, or it could be somewhere in the area outside the mall. That increases the challenge for the central station, Hertel said.</p>
<p>“In the mobile world, you have to have some sort of photo and a basic description of what the person looks like so if you’re trying to tell [a responder] that someone fell down in a parking lot, you can tell them what to look for,” he said. “You’ve got to get the photos, you’ve got to database the stuff, you’ve got to have a process for updating those photos as [people] change their hair color and hair style. It’s an ongoing thing.”</p>
<p>Kevin Helmig, president of Centralarm Monitoring in Manchester, N.H., said photo identification often plays a key role in getting help to those in need in a mobile environment.</p>
<p>“In a statically-installed system scenario, we would not know necessarily what the people look like either, but it’s a lot easier to identify them within their own home than in a mall with hundreds or thousands of people,” he said. “If it were a clearly defined medical or panic situation and we did not get any response, or we heard what sounds like a kidnapping or something of that nature, we would just dispatch. In other words, when in doubt, send the authorities.”</p>
<p>Helmig said PERS accounts for about 25 percent of Centralarm’s business, with MPERS making up about 5 percent. Both categories are growing rapidly, he said, and the company is looking to expand into other facets of senior monitoring.</p>
<p>“A new thrust is for us to be more involved in the medically oriented services,” he said. “We already handle medication reminders. As far as [monitoring] vital signs, we have newer clientele asking us to do that and we’re ready to do it. We haven’t done it yet, but we’re contracted to.”</p>
<p>PERS makes up nearly 20 percent of Rapid Response’s business, Hertel said, with MPERS a small but rapidly growing fraction of that amount. He predicted that mobile applications would account for 25 percent of PERS business within five years, and that this type of medical telematics technology would dramatically influence the marketplace.</p>
<p>“So not only are we dealing with positions and panic buttons, but we’re going to be dealing with heart rates and respiratory rates and things like that which are going to start to become more and more mainstream in these [mobile] devices,” he said. “It can also be medical consumption and hydration levels. … It’s in its infancy now, but it’s coming.”</p> </div>
</div>
</div>
<span property="dc:title" content="Going mobile" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span>Wed, 25 Jul 2012 18:36:19 +0000Tess Nacelewicz15563 at http://www.securitysystemsnews.comhttp://www.securitysystemsnews.com/article/going-mobile#commentsNYMP court hearing set for April 27http://www.securitysystemsnews.com/article/nymp-court-hearing-set-april-27
<div class="field field-name-field-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden clearfix">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even">NYMP president Wahrsager says company is being mismanaged by receiver </div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="field field-name-field-pubdate field-type-datestamp field-label-hidden clearfix">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even" property="schema:datePublished dc:date"><span class="date-display-single" property="schema:datePublished dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2011-04-21T14:24:43-04:00">04/21/2011</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="field field-name-field-blogger field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden clearfix">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even" rel="schema:author dc:creator">Tess Nacelewicz</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden clearfix">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even" property="schema:articleBody content:encoded"><p>FREEPORT, N.Y.—Wayne Wahrsager, president of New York Merchants Protective Co., Inc. (NYMP)—a full-service alarm company here that’s been in his family for more than 100 years—contends the company’s court-appointed receiver is grossly mismanaging the business, causing “staggering waste and losses,” and also trying to fire the person vitally needed to ensure the business survives: Wayne Wahrsager.</p>
<p>
“They’re trying to terminate me as of right now,” Wahrsager told <em>Security Systems News</em> today, April 21. He said the lock to his office door at NYMP was changed earlier this week in an apparent attempt to keep him out, but he said he has taken the door off its hinges and continues to come in to work.</p>
<p>
In court documents filed this week in federal court, Wahrsager has asked a federal judge to curtail the powers of the receiver, attorney Ronald Friedman, and also stop him from terminating or suspending Wahrsager’s employment. A hearing on the request is set for next week, on April 27.</p>
<p>
An attempt to reach Friedman’s attorney for comment was not successful before SSN’s deadline. Friedman has until April 25 to file a response to Wahrsager’s contentions. Friedman has previously accused Wahrsager of intentionally sabotaging NYMP's business to prevent Bank of America from recovering on a $17.5 million loan to the company.</p>
<p>
The court filings are the latest development in a civil lawsuit filed by Bank of America on Jan. 5 of this year against NYMP. Bank of America charged NYMP with breach of contract regarding the loan. Bank of America said then it was owed more than $19.2 million, exclusive of interest, attorney’s fees and expenses, and sought the appointment of a receiver to protect the assets of NYMP.</p>
<p>
NYMP, of which Wahrsager is a principal, is a full service alarm company serving New York and New Jersey. Wahrsager told SSN that the loan was originally made by LaSalle Bank, National Association, but that bank was bought by Bank of America. Bank of America filed suit after an attempt by NYMP to work out a forbearance agreement on the loan failed, Wahrsager said.</p>
<p>
He told SSN that at the time he agreed to the appointment of a receiver and “kind of welcomed” what he thought would be an “impartial” expert to “fix the problems that needed to be fixed.”</p>
<p>
In his court affidavit, he explained: “I viewed the opportunity to work with a professional receiver and his retained professionals as a good faith vehicle to attempt to work with BOA [Bank of America], NYMP’s largest creditor, to resolve NYMP’s outstanding debt.”</p>
<p>
But now, Wahrsager contends in the filing, that belief has been “shattered,” and the “actions of the receiver have gone from mismanagement to negligent mismanagement to gross mismanagement.”</p>
<p>
Wahrsager is seeking a court hearing on the amount of compensation that the receiver, Friedman, and his agent running NYMP, TRG Associates, Inc., are receiving.</p>
<p>
Wahrsager claims in his affidavit that the receiver and his attorney and other professionals have been paid nearly $644,000 between Jan. 5 and March 31 of this year. Yet, Wahrsager contends, “in consideration of these payments the receiver has not restructured or turned around the company, but has instead created a cash shortfall,” which Wahrsager says exceeds $1.2 million. </p>
<p>
He told SSN that in four months, the receiver has lost more than $100,000 worth of RMR and about 900 accounts and has made mistakes that include failing to bid for a $1.5 million New York City Department of Education contract NYMP previously had, sending fire techs out to repair burglar alarms, and not hiring sales staff. NYMP sales staff left after the lawsuit was filed, Wahrsager said.</p>
<p>
Wahrsager told SSN that the receiver is trying to fire him because he is shining “a high intensity light on what’s going on.”</p>
<p>
Wahrsager’s attorney, Gary Fischoff, in an affidavit said his client is “akin to a whistleblower.” Fischoff said that the receiver has told Wahrsager not to come to the office during business hours and that “he will shortly be fired.” </p>
<p>
Fischoff contends the receiver needs to work with Wahrsager “as a team, with Mr. Wahrsager utilizing his years of experience as a manager in the security and fire alarm field while the receiver remains to manage the finances of NYMP, thereby protecting the interest of Bank of America.”</p>
<p>
Wayne Wahrsager and NYMP also are defendants in another lawsuit filed Feb. 19 in the same federal court.</p>
<p>
That breach of contract lawsuit also names other defendants, including NationWide Digital Monitoring Co., under its corporate name of NationWide Central Station Monitoring Corp., and Aaron Wahrsager, who is president of that company and Wayne Wahrsager’s son. </p>
<p>
That lawsuit, filed by the NYMP receiver, Friedman, alleges the defendants transferred “a significant portion” of the assets of NYMP to NationWide “for no consideration in an effort to prevent Bank of America, its secured creditor, from recovering upon its $17,500,000 unpaid loan to NYMP.”</p>
<p>
The lawsuit further claims the defendants “intentionally sabotaged, and continue to sabotage to this day, the remaining business of NYMP” to thwart Bank of America and the receiver of NYMP from collecting any judgment.</p>
<p>
Aaron and Wayne Wahrsager deny those allegations.</p>
<p>
Aaron Wahrsager also has told SSN that the lawsuit has nothing to do with a <a href="http://www.securitysystemsnews.com/article/" target="_blank">recent decision by gun manufacturer Smith &amp; Wesson to terminate its licensing agreement with NationWide</a> as of this past March 31.</p>
<p>
Both Aaron and Wayne Wahrsager stressed that NationWide has no legal connection to NYMP and was not a guarantor of the $17.5 million loan. </p>
<p>
However, Wayne Wahrsager told SSN that he believes the lawsuits “muddied up the waters” regarding the licensing agreement.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<span property="dc:title" content="NYMP court hearing set for April 27" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span>Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:24:43 +0000legacy_editor14582 at http://www.securitysystemsnews.comhttp://www.securitysystemsnews.com/article/nymp-court-hearing-set-april-27#comments